Objective

Simply put the goal of this program is to get active NetBeans
community members involved in testing of the NetBeans IDE 5.0 Beta and RC builds.
Participants will provide feedback on product usability, quality
and performance. In return, those volunteers are given the opportunity to
significantly influence the quality of NetBeans IDE 5.0. It is important to stress
though that NetCAT program is about quality acceptance and not about feature
design.

Program members

People participating in the program should have previous experience with
NetBeans IDE and should be willing to contribute some time and effort. The details of their
responsibilities are explained in FAQ section. List of NetCAT 5.0
program participants is available here. We kindly ask all
NetCAT members to follow the rules defined in NetCAT etiquette.

Benefits

Members of the NetCAT program will enjoy many special privileges. They
will have an opportunity to nominate bugs which they and their colleagues consider critical
to the success of NetBeans IDE. They can object against waiving other bugs as they are part
of Bug Waiver Council. Members who submit bugs during this program will have their bugs
marked with a magic prefix that guarantees special attention from developers and quality
engineers. Additionally, they can request new features for future releases. And yes, there
are some gifts ready for all active members, of course. The most important fact is that we
want our community to accept the release. Your voice is important to us!

What tools are in place ?

There are several accessory means prepared specially for this program.
Here is the list:

Item

Description

Detail

Action

Mailing list

Archived e-mail alias dedicated exclusively for communication between program
participants, information about progress, important milestones, bug waiving
process and others.

Brief time schedule

This is a rough plan of important announcements, milestones
and tasks scheduled for upcoming 9 weeks during NetCAT program.

September 7 - NetCAT program invitation sent

September 8 - End of accepting applications

September 19 - NetCAT team ready

September 26 - 5.0 Beta released, NetCAT team starts testing

Mid of December - High Resistance mode

Beginning of January - RC build testing

Mid of January - Final CA survey

End of January - FCS release

Current status

The project is over. NetCAT 5.0 team has evaluated NetBeans 5.0 Release
Candidate 2 build and approved of it as FCS. Take a look at the results
from Community Acceptance survey or results from Satisfaction
survey with NetCAT 5.0 program itself. You can also find out activity and effectivity of each member of the NetCAT 5.0 team
here.